The US is probably the Western country that has the least excuse to fear large-scale immigration. Its much larger and wealthier than, say, any European country. Whatever the upper limit is to how many people a country can take in and successfully integrate, it is probably much higher for the US than pretty much any other country. The obstacles are simply xenophobia and political cowardice.

"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

-Generals William T. Sherman and Ulysses S Grant, the Battle of Shiloh.

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"-Terry Pratchett's DEATH.

The US is probably the Western country that has the least excuse to fear large-scale immigration. Its much larger and wealthier than, say, any European country. Whatever the upper limit is to how many people a country can take in and successfully integrate, it is probably much higher for the US than pretty much any other country. The obstacles are simply xenophobia and political cowardice.

Beyond size and wealth, there is also geographic access. Europe is convenient both to Africa and Asia; immigration there is far easier. To get to the States though, either you have to go all the way across Asia, through Siberia, to the Bering Strait-- hardly the easiest or most convenient route-- or shell out a lot of money to sail or fly there. Even South America is far enough from Africa that Cuba-style boat-people emigrations aren't really an option. Even the Vietnamese only tried to make their way to other Asian countries via boat. That's why illegal immigration to the US is almost always either Hispanics-- they're the only group for whom geographic access is actually plausible-- or via organized crime in shipping.

Africa is set to undergo the mother of all population explosions. There is no way this will be helped with migration to Europe. Even if Europe absorbs ten million Africans a year that would hardly dent it.

Africa is set to undergo the mother of all population explosions. There is no way this will be helped with migration to Europe. Even if Europe absorbs ten million Africans a year that would hardly dent it.

So what, exactly, do you suggest we do instead?

There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin

Africa is set to undergo the mother of all population explosions. There is no way this will be helped with migration to Europe. Even if Europe absorbs ten million Africans a year that would hardly dent it.

So what, exactly, do you suggest we do instead?

This is off topic. Turn it into a shithouse thread perhaps?

I have no idea. I don't know shit about population planning
Literally bomb entire countries with condoms and leaflets on family planning?
Stop all foreign aid aimed at breeding more humans who can't be sustained?

Almost everything would be more meaningful than the current open borders fail, which only helps robust young men.

My Nazy-Racysm-Driveby-CosmicalAli predictions:

Europe absorbing a couple of million Africans will likely result in, in no meaningful order:
1. Resurgence of nationalism/fascism in all of Europe.
2. Sharia zones in Sweden, Germany, England.
The demographics right now point towards all of Western Europe becoming Islamised before 2100.
3. Won't dent Africas demographic suicide a bit. Nature will.
4. Cautionary tale on risk of open borders for rest of the world for some time.
5. End of EU - With all that comes with it that, TL:DR a bunch of European versions of decline of Argentinas/Lebanons 1920-2010.

6. Won't do ANYTHING about Africas demographic destiny.
That destiny is a die off of living African human beings of epic proportions: plagues, starvation, genocides, the full extinction of every animal larger than a house cat, the first continent to deplete drinking water, Islamic states versus whatever.

Some very nice Chinese farms, mines, business in the middle of all of this.
In case you think China, India, Russia will be dropping aid to starving Africans like Europe and US did before their decline you are in for some sour grapes.

I thought the Sharia zones and Muslim-only areas were already sweeping across Europe? I mean, I have been hearing that white culture is under immediate threat. Can you Nazis get your story straight because y'all are unable to be consistent in your own propaganda.

"I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers, consultin' with the rain.
And my head I'd be scratchin', while my thoughts were busy hatchin', if I only had a brain!
I would not be just a nothin', my head all full of stuffin', my heart all full of pain.
I would dance and be merry, life would be would be a ding-a-derry, if I only had a brain!"

Suddenly dropping hundreds of thousands or millions of well-educated, white, English speaking, middle class people into, say, the UK would have a serious detrimental impact on public services and infrastructure and cause huge resentment amongst the locals, especially if they were concentrated into specific areas.

The fact that we are talking about poor, largely non-native speaking, often unskilled people, sometimes with very little understanding of the culture they are coming into, largely being concentrated in traditionally working class areas that already have a bunch of pre-existing social problems just amplifies that impact.

6. Won't do ANYTHING about Africas demographic destiny.
That destiny is a die off of living African human beings of epic proportions: plagues, starvation, genocides, the full extinction of every animal larger than a house cat, the first continent to deplete drinking water, Islamic states versus whatever.

IMF data would suggest that African GDP / capita is increasing quite easily, from say 2010. Even if the population increases, for now it appears economic capabilities are more than increasing to compensate for the increase needs of a higher population.

The Romulan Republic wrote:They aren't. Only xenophobes regard the presence of immigrants as a persecution of their country's citizens.

Or alternatively, if you are referring to the criticisms of those citizens who support neo-fascist movements: they are "on trial" (if you want to hyperbolically put it that way) for supporting a bigoted and morally-bankrupt ideology with a history of atrocities and despotism. And it is my right of free expression to criticize them: you don't get to claim "the rights of the people" to defend those who vote for xenophobic policies, then cry "oppression!" when I exercise my right to hold a different view. Freedom of speech is a two-way street.

Nor do the neo-fascists speak for "the citizens of the destination country" as a whole.

Only xenophobes regard the presence of illegal immigrants as persecution? I mean I wouldn't use the word persecution but the idea that you have to be a xenophobe to disapprove of mass uncontrolled migration of people from underdeveloped countries with much higher crime rates as threatening is a bit ridiculous. You do have the right to call such people xhenophobes. It's just ridiculous.

The Romulan Republic wrote:How does one "prove" that before arriving, if they are a refugee?

And if they do, will it honestly make any difference to the far Right's position? Tell them the immigrant has a job, and they'll just rant about how they're taking jobs from citizens (which ignores that bringing more people into the country also creates jobs, as more people means more customers, more demand for services, etc.).

Of course, the point of such rhetoric is generally to imply that immigrants (or non-white immigrants, at any rate) are lazy, stupid parasites, just coming to leach off our welfare systems/live as criminals. Which... see Simon_Jester's point about the kind of people who can make (and survive) the journeys man refugees undertake. These are not lazy or incapable people.

One proves it by having the necessary education and skills and by securing a job before immigrating to a country. The fact that that still won't sway the racists in no way means people should not have objective standards. As far as Simon_Jesters point is concerned the idea that being clever enough to secure a trip on a rubber dhingy across the Mediterannean somehow makes you a potentially contributing member of a first world country is laughable.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Yes.

But "the people have the right to do something" is not, in and of itself, a justification for why they should do it. Legally I can go out and get drunk off my ass every night. Doesn't make it a good idea.

But you still won't be called a Nazi if you do get drunk right? They are citizens of Italy, therefore they don't need a justification to oppose immigration. They might be concerned by increased social cost, increased criminality or even increased population density.

Simon_Jester wrote:Are the natives subject to similar considerations? Do we have mandatory intelligence tests or jobworthiness tests that we subject our own offspring to, and deport them if they fail? Surely if there's a "you must be this valuable to enter" test, there should be a "you must be this valuable to remain" test.

Otherwise, to me this sounds more like a desperate attempt to cover up a lingering fear of racial inferiority, than anything else.

So tell me, at what standard of qualitative unworthiness do we expel someone from a country for being generically useless? Or perhaps we could start abandoning 'inferior' people to die of exposure, like the ancients did to children with disabilities because they couldn't afford to take care of them?

Why would the natives be subject to those considerations? Did I suggest going to Sub Saharan Africa, performing tests on the people there and then shipping them off to South Pole if they fail?
Citizens of a country have a right to determine who comes into their country including demanding people of even greater quality than the native population. Or they can decide not to have immigration at all.
Weeding out unwanted people from becoming citizens is not the same as expelling existing citizens since the social contract is between the citizens and the state not the state and every human being on the planet.

Simon_Jester wrote:The same dynamic is in play when dealing with, say, Salvadoreans, who have little or no more difficulty getting to the US physically than, say, Ghanans would getting to Europe. By and large, the people with the life skills, intelligence, and flexibility to emigrate are not actively inferior to the people in the country they move to. Some proportion of them may be lucky fools, or people whose skills are undesirable in the host nation (i.e. con men), but no more so than you might expect just from looking at the people being born in the host country.

There's an argument for restricting immigration to levels the host country can integrate in a reasonable timeframe (i.e. 1% or 2% of the population a year, perhaps more, but not 20% or 30% a year obviously). But that's not really the argument you're advancing here.

I'm advancing an argument that the citizens of a country have a right to dictate immigration policy that they wish not the policy with arbitrary numbers you keep coming up with. They might agree with you or they might not. It doesn't make them Nazis or bad people either way.
For example they might say that the gang activity that Salvadoreans brought with them is not really desirable and nothing that Salvadoreans brought to the US is worth dealing with it. You might disagree and look at it more from the angle of the increased total GDP and extra consumers and workers that came to US for example and decide that it is worth it. That doesn't make any side evil or Nazi.

Simon_Jester wrote:Bluntly, I don't think the US would be worse off for admitting 30 million West African immigrants, if there were 30 million West African immigrants available. I think the bulk of them would be intelligent, motivated people who would be net contributors to society. Insofar as they arrived without skills, most of them would acquire those skills to the best of their ability. Some fraction of them would no doubt be useless ne'er-do-wells, but some fraction of Americans born in the US are too.

I think in some ways we might be better off, in some ways worse off, but on net I don't think it would truly create more problems than it solved. I think admitting them all at once would be a problem, but it would also be such a massive and unprecedented Volkerwanderung that I don't consider it a realistic concern that they actually might arrive all at once.

Adding 30 million extra people that "won't make a country worse off" is not exactly a ringing endorsement of immigration is it? Just from the perspective of space. To say nothing of the fact that your evidence that mass immigration from a region with far lower education levels and far higher crime levels won't cause net negative effects on the host country is "I think".
And even if the ultimate effect is "net positive" it won't be net positive for everyone will it? And those who will experience mostly negative effects have a right to politically organize and try to stem the flow and this doesn't make them Nazis.

In fact within US itself there is a lot of discussion about gentrification and the negative effects that it causes for certain segments of the population. Will the influx of whites into Atlanta be a net positive for the city? Looking at the income and crime rate disparity between whites and blacks most probably yes it will. Does that make the blacks that complain about gentrification because it will drive up the rent or even because it will dilute the black voting power Nazis? Not really.

But if the forces of evil should rise again, to cast a shadow on the heart of the city.
Call me. -Batman

Only xenophobes regard the presence of illegal immigrants as persecution? I mean I wouldn't use the word persecution but the idea that you have to be a xenophobe to disapprove of mass uncontrolled migration of people from underdeveloped countries with much higher crime rates as threatening is a bit ridiculous. You do have the right to call such people xhenophobes. It's just ridiculous.

If you regard the mere presence of illegal immigrants in your country (regardless of who they are or the number of them) as a threat and affront to you- then yes, you are a xenophobe. That was my point.

One proves it by having the necessary education and skills and by securing a job before immigrating to a country. The fact that that still won't sway the racists in no way means people should not have objective standards. As far as Simon_Jesters point is concerned the idea that being clever enough to secure a trip on a rubber dhingy across the Mediterranean somehow makes you a potentially contributing member of a first world country is laughable.

I think, for a start, that you are greatly downplaying and belittling the difficulties that poor migrants from Africa and the Middle East face in reaching Europe, and the strength and capability it takes to survive them. Those traits don't necessarily guarantee them success in their new country, but they do put to rest (in the mind of any remotely impartial observer) the stereotype of the shiftless, unemployed, welfare-seeking immigrant.

As to your argument that immigrants should have to have a job lined up for them in their new country, let me give you an example:

I'm a duel citizen of the US and Canada. My mother is Canadian. I grew up in the US, but we moved back to Canada around my thirteenth birthday.

Now, I'm a Canadian already, and so is most of my family, so no problem there. But my father was a US citizen only, and did not have a job lined up for him in Canada (in fact, he retired when we moved up here, and died of cancer less than a year later). My father was not an ignorant or a lazy man. He was an artist who won multiple honorary degrees, and worked for decades as a university professor to support his family. So far as I am aware, he had no criminal record. He was in most respects a model citizen, someone that any nation worth living in should be proud to call their own. But he didn't have a job lined up for him here, because its not always easy to find a job in a strange country before you get there, no matter who you are.

Should my father have been barred from Canada, and my family torn apart? Because if you're consistent, if this isn't about race or nationality, then the only answer you can give me is "Yes". Or, alternately, modify your position to allow for at least some immigrants who don't already have jobs lined up. In which case, I will expect you to define very carefully when exceptions to your rule should be made, and based on what criteria.

But you still won't be called a Nazi if you do get drunk right? They are citizens of Italy, therefore they don't need a justification to oppose immigration. They might be concerned by increased social cost, increased criminality or even increased population density.

Stop evading the point.

They don't need a justification legally to exercise their right to political speech, but they damn well do need a justification if they expect others to take their position seriously. We're not talking about weather Italians have the right to express xenophobic views. We're talking about weather those views are a sound or ethical basis for public policy. "I have the legal right to be a dick" is a pretty poor argument, and does not absolve them of the need to justify their positions if they wish those positions to become public policy that effects the entire nation.

"I'm an Italian" is not, in and of itself, sufficient reason why they and no one else should get to determine who is allowed to become an Italian in the future. Legally, it might be, if they actually got enough votes behind them to make their will into law, but certainly not morally or intellectually.

"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

-Generals William T. Sherman and Ulysses S Grant, the Battle of Shiloh.

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"-Terry Pratchett's DEATH.

The Romulan Republic wrote:If you regard the mere presence of illegal immigrants in your country (regardless of who they are or the number of them) as a threat and affront to you- then yes, you are a xenophobe. That was my point.

Interesting. So you come home, open the door and there is a strange guy in the living room watching TV. If you find his presence threatening you are...introvert? Antisocial? Your point is without any logic or supporting evidence and thus has no merit.

The Romulan Republic wrote:I think, for a start, that you are greatly downplaying and belittling the difficulties that poor migrants from Africa and the Middle East face in reaching Europe, and the strength and capability it takes to survive them. Those traits don't necessarily guarantee them success in their new country, but they do put to rest (in the mind of any remotely impartial observer) the stereotype of the shiftless, unemployed, welfare-seeking immigrant.

As to your argument that immigrants should have to have a job lined up for them in their new country, let me give you an example:

I'm a duel citizen of the US and Canada. My mother is Canadian. I grew up in the US, but we moved back to Canada around my thirteenth birthday.

Now, I'm a Canadian already, and so is most of my family, so no problem there. But my father was a US citizen only, and did not have a job lined up for him in Canada (in fact, he retired when we moved up here, and died of cancer less than a year later). My father was not an ignorant or a lazy man. He was an artist who won multiple honorary degrees, and worked for decades as a university professor to support his family. So far as I am aware, he had no criminal record. He was in most respects a model citizen, someone that any nation worth living in should be proud to call their own. But he didn't have a job lined up for him here, because its not always easy to find a job in a strange country before you get there, no matter who you are.

Should my father have been barred from Canada, and my family torn apart? Because if you're consistent, if this isn't about race or nationality, then the only answer you can give me is "Yes". Or, alternately, modify your position to allow for at least some immigrants who don't already have jobs lined up. In which case, I will expect you to define very carefully when exceptions to your rule should be made, and based on what criteria.

Again: the fact that you can bargain your way through North Africa on your way to Europe in no way demonstrates you have what it takes to be a productive member of the society. Sure not Every. Single. One. of the refugees has to have a job lined up but it's a nice starting position. To say nothing of the fact that your father had a Canadian spouse which can't exactly be said of the vast majority of illegal immigrants. But if your father tried to jump the fence then sure I would be all for booting him out of the country. And no I don't need to define every possible border case before embarking on a general policy towards immigration.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Stop evading the point.

They don't need a justification legally to exercise their right to political speech, but they damn well do need a justification if they expect others to take their position seriously. We're not talking about weather Italians have the right to express xenophobic views. We're talking about weather those views are a sound or ethical basis for public policy. "I have the legal right to be a dick" is a pretty poor argument, and does not absolve them of the need to justify their positions if they wish those positions to become public policy that effects the entire nation.

"I'm an Italian" is not, in and of itself, sufficient reason why they and no one else should get to determine who is allowed to become an Italian in the future. Legally, it might be, if they actually got enough votes behind them to make their will into law, but certainly not morally or intellectually.

You have yet to provide a shred of reasoning that citizens of a country are "dicks" if they wish to limit immigration. It's their country isn't it? Do you have a right to limit who comes to live in your apartment? Do you have a right to bar entry into your apartment without any explanation whatsoever if you choose to do it?

But if the forces of evil should rise again, to cast a shadow on the heart of the city.
Call me. -Batman

That world died in 2008, it produced these people and keeping it's rotting corpse on life support will keep on producing more of them until change actually happens. A lot of people probably won't like this change but they cannot stop it either since the centrist politicians have nothing to offer but more of the same, they have nothing, are nothing, believe in nothing. Populism will only grow, unstoppable.

Essentially correct. The centre-left got a lot nastier over the same period as well. The liberal narrative in the 1980s, going mainstream in the 1990s, was inclusive in the 'let's all come together sense' and began to celebrate many (by no means all) marginalised groups within the main culture rather than relegation to subcultures. Identity politics, oppression olympics, everyone trying to be 'centered' rather than just included and all the hate for straight/cis/able-bodied/neurotypical/white/male/etc was being gestated in the seedier corners of academia but didn't ramp up in the mainstream until the late 2000s (not coincidentally, when social networking mainstreamed). The left was no strangers to using hate for political gain of course, but in the early to mid 20th century it was mainly a class warfare message; after that was neutered by appropriate media manipulation it took a couple of decades for identity politics and essentially mirror-imaging classic right wing hatred to ramp up. Hate turns out the base to vote of course, but at significant social costs, for the left and the right.

I feel kind of bittersweet about growing up in a period where the social narrative was more positive, and both the left and right were relatively sane and pleasant. Obviously the alt-right are going to continue to get worse, and are generally more dangerous, but I expect the left to follow after down the same road, as illustrated by behaviour on this forum.

I feel kind of bittersweet about growing up in a period where the social narrative was more positive, and both the left and right were relatively sane and pleasant. Obviously the alt-right are going to continue to get worse, and are generally more dangerous, but I expect the left to follow after down the same road, as illustrated by behaviour on this forum.

And if the left don't go down that road they're going to be trampled under the boots of those who will. C'est la vie.

There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin

Simon_Jester wrote:Are the natives subject to similar considerations? Do we have mandatory intelligence tests or jobworthiness tests that we subject our own offspring to, and deport them if they fail? Surely if there's a "you must be this valuable to enter" test, there should be a "you must be this valuable to remain" test.

Otherwise, to me this sounds more like a desperate attempt to cover up a lingering fear of racial inferiority, than anything else.

So tell me, at what standard of qualitative unworthiness do we expel someone from a country for being generically useless? Or perhaps we could start abandoning 'inferior' people to die of exposure, like the ancients did to children with disabilities because they couldn't afford to take care of them?

Why would the natives be subject to those considerations? Did I suggest going to Sub Saharan Africa, performing tests on the people there and then shipping them off to South Pole if they fail?
Citizens of a country have a right to determine who comes into their country including demanding people of even greater quality than the native population. Or they can decide not to have immigration at all.
Weeding out unwanted people from becoming citizens is not the same as expelling existing citizens since the social contract is between the citizens and the state not the state and every human being on the planet.

Except that the argument is pretty much the same either way. If you don't want a bunch of useless stupid/criminal people in your country, then that should matter all the time, not just when it's time to keep out a bunch of immigrants.

There are a limited number of plausible motivations for limiting immigration. Given that "we don't want objectively morally or mentally inferior people in our country" isn't being applied consistently enough to be a plausible explanation, and that "there are just plain too many of them coming in" isn't factually true, the explanation "we're a bunch of racists" starts to look more and more like the real motive.

It's like, I may have the right to do a thing that is shitty on account of being a shitty person if I want. But if I do that thing, and if all the other explanations for why I did it start to look weak... people are going to focus in on the "Simon is a shitty person" hypothesis and condemn him accordingly.

Simon_Jester wrote:The same dynamic is in play when dealing with, say, Salvadoreans, who have little or no more difficulty getting to the US physically than, say, Ghanans would getting to Europe. By and large, the people with the life skills, intelligence, and flexibility to emigrate are not actively inferior to the people in the country they move to. Some proportion of them may be lucky fools, or people whose skills are undesirable in the host nation (i.e. con men), but no more so than you might expect just from looking at the people being born in the host country.

There's an argument for restricting immigration to levels the host country can integrate in a reasonable timeframe (i.e. 1% or 2% of the population a year, perhaps more, but not 20% or 30% a year obviously). But that's not really the argument you're advancing here.

I'm advancing an argument that the citizens of a country have a right to dictate immigration policy that they wish not the policy with arbitrary numbers you keep coming up with. They might agree with you or they might not. It doesn't make them Nazis or bad people either way.

Well gee, if they come up with an immigration policy fueled by neo-Nazi bullshit, then hell yes it can make them "Nazis or bad people."

See, the thing about rights is that they come with responsibilities. One of the responsibilities I have is that when I have rights, I am responsible for exercising those rights in a consistent and ethical manner. Not in a capricious or unethical manner. If I behave unethically or capriciously, people have their own right to judge me for such behavior. I can't say "don't judge me for being an asshole" or "don't judge me for making weak excuses for why I do shitty things." My right to be an asshole does not render me magically immune from criticism. If the criticism kinda stings, then maybe that's because I deserve to get stung.

For example they might say that the gang activity that Salvadoreans brought with them is not really desirable and nothing that Salvadoreans brought to the US is worth dealing with it. You might disagree and look at it more from the angle of the increased total GDP and extra consumers and workers that came to US for example and decide that it is worth it. That doesn't make any side evil or Nazi.

If, purely hypothetically, it were repeatedly and firmly established that the Salvadoreans were not in fact a major cause of gang activity, or that their gangs were simply displacing other gang activity that would have happened anyway, or something like that...

Eventually, at some point, "Salvadoreans cause gang problems" stops being a valid reason for non-Nazis to object to Salvadorean immigration, and starts becoming a pretext that yes-Nazis can use to pretend to have honorable reasons for doing something. When in reality, they are doing it for less honorable reasons.

So none of what you say grants blanket immunity to criticism of motives. It depends on how strong the supports and arguments are in detail.

Adding 30 million extra people that "won't make a country worse off" is not exactly a ringing endorsement of immigration is it? Just from the perspective of space. To say nothing of the fact that your evidence that mass immigration from a region with far lower education levels and far higher crime levels won't cause net negative effects on the host country is "I think".

If I'd used more confident language would that make me more correct? I'm extrapolating here from the things I've directly, personally seen. For example, one of them is that while immigrants from lower-education regions may be less educated, a lot of that is because of a lack of credential inflation. They don't lack college degrees because they'd be too dumb to go to college in America, they lack college degrees because they're from a country where few people get to go to college. Many of them are fully capable of doing just as well here as our native-born college or high school graduates, because we give out college degrees to people who are pretty close to the median of our population in things like intelligence, motivation, and organizational ability, and we give out high school diplomas like they were paper towels.

So again, while this CAN be a valid argument, it can also become a weak and transparent excuse for excluding people unjustly and unfairly.

And even if the ultimate effect is "net positive" it won't be net positive for everyone will it? And those who will experience mostly negative effects have a right to politically organize and try to stem the flow and this doesn't make them Nazis.

In fact within US itself there is a lot of discussion about gentrification and the negative effects that it causes for certain segments of the population. Will the influx of whites into Atlanta be a net positive for the city? Looking at the income and crime rate disparity between whites and blacks most probably yes it will. Does that make the blacks that complain about gentrification because it will drive up the rent or even because it will dilute the black voting power Nazis? Not really.

Well gee, it depends on whether they present invalid arguments over and over in an obvious attempt to continue arguing for a predetermined conclusion ("keep out people we don't like") regardless of whether those arguments are true or false.

Sooooo, I don't really know enough about Italian politics to take a stab at this ..... what are the odds of a government forming in the near future? Which groups are most likely to form a government if there is one? Or is it more likely that there will be another election?